Thursday, 2 July 2015

Cybersecurity: UniTrento and CNR together in the hunt for malaware

Versione stampabile

To collect, store and archive the pathogen softwares or malawares most widespread and dangerous, to study their characteristics and to improve the standards of the computer security needed to neutralise them: This is the objective of the Malaware lab, created by the Department Information Engineering and Computer Science (DISI) of the University of Trento.

Since 2013 the professors, researchers and PhDs managed to capture about 70 malawares, activating 32. These pathogen softwares (also called "exploit kit") have the precise function of infecting users and, in turn, can be "armed" and used as vectors to distribute other malawares, similarly as carrier-insects transmit diseases. By a Google's report, two thirds of the attacks to the end-users is caused by this kind of software.

DISI is a cutting edge center on computer security and it has been involved, together with the National Council of Research, in the creation of a joint laboratory within the framework of the NeCS (European Network for Cyber-Security); the project is promoted by the Institute of Informatics and Telematics of the National Council of Research (Iit-Cnr) and aims at creating an international research and educational network on cybersecurity. The European Commission has decided to allocate 1,3 million euros to the creation of this double laboratory, through the Horizon 2020 program. At the Trento headquarters will be assigned €500 thousand, the remaining €800 thousand will go to the Pisa headquarters, hosted in the Cnr structures. The goal is to finance young researchers and to organise international schools and higher education courses.

«NeCS will give us the possibility to create and combine already exhisting computer security research activities within an international and multidisciplinary higher education plan. This will allow to consolidate and amplify the skills of the joint lab with the Cnr, and also to become a center to attract both young talents and industry», has declared Bruno Crispo, head of the joint lab for the University of Trento.

The DISI and Iit-Cnr collaboration in the field of cybersecurity has been active since many years already. The European project S3MS, focusing on the security of mobile devices since 2006 and coordinated by Fabio Massacci of the University of Trento, included Iit-Cnr as one of the key partners.From 2010 till 2014 DISI and Iit-Cnr worked together for NESSOS, another European initiative which involved universities and multinational companies in the search for new strategies in the computer security field. NeCS is proving to be the natural continuation of that initiative.

«The fact the European Community continues to finance our joint activities - declares Fabio Martinelli, coordinator of the European projects NeCS/NESSOS and co-chair of the joint lab for Iit-Cnr - is a testimony of the good work we have produced and that will continue to perform».